Chapter Thirty-Six
H ow’s she going to do that when Cerys is dead?
Charlie’s words rang through her head. She had replayed every conversation she could remember having with Sienna, trying to determine if she had missed something. If there had been a clue, a word, anything which would have let her know. But there was nothing. Because Sienna had been vague about her family and her history. She had given her snippets, little pieces here and there, but Debs had never pushed because she could see just how difficult it was for Sienna to talk about it.
I should have pushed harder.
But then, the one time she had pushed, she had pushed her away.
She wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing was right. But she needed to speak to someone. Someone who knew Sienna better than she did. And this was the only place, the only person she knew she could find that.
She dodged the traffic as she crossed the road, skipping over the puddles by the curb from the rain shower the night before. It seemed the weather had reflected her mood over the past couple of weeks; she was overcast and uncertain, shifting from one thing to another, unsure what the right thing to do was.
Pushing open the door, the bell chimed, and she felt another wave of unfamiliar anxiety rise in her as Max turned to greet her.
“Debs!”
“Hello, Max.”
“Well,” they said as they looked her up and down. “You look about as shit as Sienna.”
Debs huffed a laugh, grateful for Max’s bluntness. She had liked them from the first moment Sienna had spoken about them, loved their friendship and the love they had for each other. It reminded her of herself and Mica. She imagined they would always be there for each other, through thick and thin, and even though the possibility of her not being that person for Sienna, of not being anything to Sienna, was painful, she could rest a little knowing she would always have Max.
“Yeah, well. Life fucking sucks at the moment.”
“Yeah, I think that’s pretty much how she’s feeling as well. What are you doing here?”
“I know it’s not my place, and I know you probably don’t want to help me because Sienna has probably told you how I behaved—”
“Oh no. You don’t get to shoulder the blame for this on your own. I know Sienna, and I know what she can be like. I told her, after she went to dinner with her parents, that she needed to speak to you, and she refused. I could see it happening, and I couldn’t stop it.” Debs watched as Max dropped their head, swallowing thickly. “You were the best thing to happen to her in a long time, and I didn’t want her to throw it away. I should have tried harder.”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself either.”
“Really? I should have pushed her harder to talk about it.”
Debs took a step forward, her heels clicking on the stone floor. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. That I should have tried harder. Not forced her but been more forceful in trying to get her to talk to me when I could see there was something troubling her. But then I wonder if it would have made a difference. Or would it have just ended in the same fucking result just sooner.”
“I don’t know. Sienna can be stubborn.”
“So fucking stubborn,” Debs agreed with a pained laugh. “But I love her, Max. And whether she pushed me away or not, I don’t want her to be hurting.”
“You love her?” Max asked, shock painted across their features.
“Yes.”
“Does she know?”
“No. I never said it to her. I don’t think I realised properly until she was gone. I didn’t even say it until Saturday night when my son came home and told me how he had spent the afternoon in Sienna’s office, eating biscuits and sharing stories. And I realised that she was even more fucking wonderful than I expected for doing that, even with everything that’s passed between us.”
“You know she talks about Charlie and Thea a lot. She’ll see something on TV or something while we’re scrolling online and wonder if it’s something Charlie would like or Thea would like to go to. She was talking about getting Charlie some new game for his birthday coming up and taking Thea out over the summer holidays. She still wants to spend time with them outside of the centre, but she knows she can’t. Not yet.”
“It was never about them not knowing. I’ve never been unsure about her. Selfishly, I enjoyed having something that was just mine for once. I want nothing more than to be open with everyone about her.”
“I don’t know what was said, but she never implied like she felt you were hiding. She understood why you needed to go slow.”
Debs laughed. “Slow?”
“Well, in terms of the kids. Not so much with being at it like rabbits from the word go.”
Debs snorted, shaking her head at the way that Max didn’t beat around the bush when it came to laying it out so clearly. They had jumped into bed together, on their first date no less, and while Debs was currently living in a world of regret when it came to how things ended with Sienna, she could never regret how things started. That first night was so much more than just sex; Sienna was so much more than just anything .
Which was exactly why she was here now.
“I need to ask you a question, Max. And I want you to know that I’m not asking for details. I would never ask you to betray Sienna’s trust like that, and I understand it’s her story to tell. But I need to know if something is true so I can figure out how to handle this.”
“Okay,” Max replied with a confused squint.
“Sienna said something to Charlie. About Cerys, her sister. Charlie… He seems to think…” She took a deep breath, unable to think of a delicate way of asking. “He seems to think that Cerys is…is dead.”
“You didn’t know?”
A cold, sharp pang of horror shot through Debs. She really had hoped that Charlie, in his childhood naivety, had misinterpreted something, had drawn an inaccurate conclusion. She knew that was slim, knew that Charlie was too bright and intuitive to get this wrong. But still, she hoped, if only that she could deny herself the truth that Sienna had experienced a loss that was too great to even comprehend, even compared to her own. Her legs felt shaky, and she reached out for the counter, her hand covering her mouth and trying to hold in the sob that threatened to break free.
“You really didn’t know,” Max whispered. “Come through to the back and sit down.”
“No, no.” Debs waved off the offer, shaking her hands as she started pacing. “I need to walk. I need to move.”
“Okay…I’m sorry Sienna didn’t tell you. I know it’s not easy for her to talk about, but I really thought she would have said something to you of all people.”
“Why?” Debs could hear the sharpness in her tone, wincing at it slightly. She wasn’t angry at Sienna, but her frustration at being kept in the dark about something so fundamental and instrumental in Sienna’s life, in her behaviour, something that was now casting every word and action in a whole new light was seeping into her voice.
“Why? Because you’re like one of the best things to ever happen to her. It took her months to tell me; we’d already broken up, and we were building a friendship, and then she just pulled away.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Yeah, but the difference is, you’re not friends. I mean, you are, and I know that she values that, but you’re more than that. I think she loves you too, Debs.”
“Then why didn’t she say anything?” Debs cried out, hating the way her voice wavered. “Just… Anything. She didn’t even have to tell me the whole story, just let me know she needed some time, space, anything. I would have given it to her.”
“Don’t let her hide.”
“What?” Debs stopped suddenly, the clicking of her heels stopping and filling the room with silence.
“What she needs now is to know that you aren’t just walking away. The reason she does this—this whole pushing people away and waiting for them to give up—is because she’s afraid she’s not enough. That she’s not worth the trouble. Prove her wrong.”
“But if I push her further away?”
“Then we’re where we are now. But I can guarantee you that she thinks your silence means that you don’t care, that she was right all along in what she thought when she went through every possible scenario in her head and convinced herself she wasn’t worth the time. And I know that’s not true, but that’s how she’s spinning it to herself right now. Prove her wrong. Show her that she’s worth it.”